


Swift Steps

by Lady_Of_Paper_7



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Comfort, Gen, Healing, Magic, Minor Injuries, Parent-Child Relationship, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 02:22:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20301868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Of_Paper_7/pseuds/Lady_Of_Paper_7
Summary: “What exactly happened this morning?”, Frigga eventually asked, smoothing some creases in the back of her son’s dark green tunica down.“Nothing”, Loki sniffed without looking at her.“Nothing?”





	Swift Steps

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own either characters, people or backstories. The only thing that I did was come up with semi-creative plots and ideas to put (already established and beloved) characters in and write them down, most of the time to come up with happy endings.

The queen’s legs were growing tired and her feet started getting sore. For the last couple of hours, she had been running around Asgard in search of her youngest son. He had run off during his and Thor’s first fighting lesson after, as far as the tutor who had been introducing the princes and several other children around Thor’s age to the basics of swordplay, an incident between him and one of his brother’s friends. It wasn’t helping that she had explicitly forbidden the guards and other parents to help her search and go hunting around Asgard calling for and chasing after the little boy. All that would do would be scaring him and he would either refuse to leave his current hiding place or run off to an even more secret hideout. She had even told her husband to stay put and, preferably stay out of her sight until Loki was safe and back in the palace.

Finally, she left the stables behind her – Loki adored animals and she had hoped he might run there and maybe curl up between the little lambs that had been born only a couple of weeks ago - that could have given him comfort, she’d figured - but there had been no trace of him anywhere near the animals. She felt her anger rise up again; not about the fact that her son had run off but about her husband insisting he took up training along with his big brother in the first place, despite her repeatedly pointing out that while Thor was old and strong enough to take up lessons in fighting and training, Loki was barely more than a toddler at this point, even if his mind was racing ahead at a point his body had no chance of keeping up.

“Why can’t they just have their other lessons together? Loki would do great at learning about history and politics and everything there is, but he is too little to learn fighting alongside Thor and his friends”, she had tried to win him over, but it had had no use.

“It will be good for them to learn together, especially if the lessons play to their different strengths and weaknesses; they will grow much closer”

“That or they will be pitted against each other and only see each other as rivals”

Especially with Thor’s friends taking up training with them. Loki had never really fit in alongside them, the age gap being just a little too big among other things.

So, this morning she had sent off both of them with an almost sincere smile and a kiss and had been sitting on hot coals ever since Odin had brought them to the corner of the yard that was designated for practice fights, training and strategies. She had nearly called them back before the sound the boys’ feet, fighting to keep up with their father’s longer strides, had died down on the corridor. A little over an hour had passed before the tutor had sent for her and she had, with a sinking feeling in her stomach complied and come to the yard. Apart from the fact that there had been some kind of squabble that had resulted in Loki running off, she had little to go on, except a general knowledge of his favourite spots and hideouts. She would find out exactly what had happened as soon as things had calmed down again and when she had talked to the tutor, minor details had been rather unimportant compared to the fact that no one had any idea _where_ Loki had vanished to.

At this point she had been to every place she could think off except one, the royal library and ironically, she had not gone there straight away, because she had feared that Loki would think it too obvious for anyone to search him where he spent the majority of his time. Apparently, she had been the one overthinking things. She pulled her skirts tighter around herself as she took the last corners leading up to the library at a running pace, having muttered a simple spell that would keep the people whose way she crossed from noticing her. It would not do for the queen to be seen running through the city, but she could not bring herself to care about that enough to _not_ _run_.

“Loki?”, she called softly as soon as she’d pushed open the door to the huge, room. Her voice came out sounding rather breathless and she hoped, he would not mistake it for anger, “Loki, my sweet, are you here?”

One hand still clutching onto the door handle and doing her best to even her breathing, Frigga strained her ears to pick up any, any sound at all. Nothing. At least that meant that no one else was dwelling between the rows and rows of shelves. It also meant that either, Loki was not there either or that he showed no indication of wanting to be found.

“Answer me please”, she called again, slowly advancing further into the room, “honey, I am worried. You are not in trouble, I just need to know where you are and if you are alright, I promise”

She paused again, one foot hovering just above the polished floor and this time, she could just about make out a silent sniff, somewhere near the very back of the room and turned towards that.

“Loki?”, she asked in the softest voice as she rounded the last row of shelves.

It was dimmer back here, where the lights of the candles did not quite reach but even without a torch, she spied the tiny shape that had curled up with his knees pulled up to his chest and one arm wrapped around them in the corner, between the wall and a shelf filled with ancient, leather bound tombs.

“Sweetheart, what are you doing here?”, she closed the short distance between them and kneeled down in front of her son, slowly reaching out towards him with one hand and letting it hover in front of him before she gently touched his bony knees, feeling the torn fabric beneath her fingers. When she didn’t get an answer, she went on just as quietly; “you are ice-cold, my sweet, have you been here all noon?”

It was too dark to make out much more than the little boy’s outline, so Frigga raised her other hand and a globe of light lit up, hovering just above the palm of his hand and pulsating weakly.

“Darling, are you going to talk to me at some point?”, she asked when he sniffed again, louder this time, as if he had been straining not to make a sound but could just not hold the sobs back anymore.

“I’m sorry”, big, fat tears run down Loki’s cheeks and his lips trembled in the pale light.

“Come here”, she slipped both hands beneath his arms and carefully lifted him off the floor and into her arms, hugging him tight to her chest, something heavy slid to the floor with a loud thud, “everything is fine, honey”, she pressed her lips against the top of his head while he hiccupped in between bouts of crying. The light rose a couple of inches higher on its own and continued glowing.

“What exactly happened this morning?”, Frigga eventually asked, smoothing some creases in the back of her son’s dark green tunica down.

“Nothing”, Loki sniffed without looking at her.

“Nothing?”, she carefully angled his face towards her with one hand, but he cast his eyes down.

“And what have we here?”, she reached for the object that had fallen to the floor earlier, holding it up with one hand, “’Treating the body and the mind’”, she squinted in the semidarkness, “a little different than our usual books for story time”

Loki shrugged, still cradling one hand to his chest and pressed his lips together.

“Will you let me see?”, Frigga glanced down at the hand Loki held covered with his other one, slowly reaching out for it,

Green, puffy eyes finally met hers and Loki regarded her for several minutes with a closed off look before he let her take his wrist and hold it up beneath the pale light. Its skin looked dark blue and purple and the fingers were swollen to almost twice their normal size.

“My poor darling”, she whispered as she carefully angled Loki’s hand in the beam, examining it as tenderly as she could, “I’ll get you back to my chambers and have a proper look at that, what do you think?”, she hugged the little boy tighter in her arms, careful not to come into contact with his injured hand as she did so.

“Hold onto me”, she got back to her feet as soon he’d nodded against her collarbone and a moment later, they found themselves in the middle of her private rooms, next to a group of small settees that were arranged in a circle in the back half of the room.

Without pausing, she carried him over to the sofa closest to the balcony and sat down with him on her lap, fitting both arms loosely around him as she took his hand again, bending forward to have a closer look.

“Would you like to tell me what happened?”, she asked blowing one long blonde curl out of her face as she turned over the little hand, and Loki winced “you won’t get in trouble”

“Volstagg hit my hand with his sword”, Loki whispered, sniffing again.

“Why didn’t you tell your tutor?”

Loki made a sound halfway between a sob and a scoff, “They were already laughing at me”

“And you went to the library because you wanted to heal your hand yourself? That was why you had one of the most sophisticated texts on healing magic with you?”, Frigga finally finished her examination; several smaller bones had been broken and his knuckles where skinned. There was little chance, Loki would have been able to take the hit even if Volstagg had hit Loki’s practice sword and not his hand. Frigga would have a word with her husband.

“You know, you can always come to me, right honey?”, she pressed her lips against his temple as he shrugged again, “I mean it”

She didn’t get another answer and instead carefully lifted the injured hand up a little, dipping her head and brushed her lips against the back of her son’s hand.

Loki squeezed his eyes shut, whimpering as the bones set again and the flesh and skin mended itself together. His mother carefully slipped one of her hands between Loki’s free fingers one and he clutched onto hers.

“All done”, Frigga finally declared, carefully moving his fingers with her own, “do you feel that?”, she asked as she did so and Loki nodded, carefully balling his hand to a fist and stretching his fingers out again.

“Does it hurt?”

“No”, Loki whispered, wiping the last traces of tears away from his eyes, “thank you”, he stretched up and slung his arms around her neck.

“That’s what I’m here for, sweetheart”, she hugged him back just as tightly and slid her fingers into his soft black streaks, holding him close, “you are staying with me today, hm? I think that was enough training for one day”

Loki positively beamed at her when he sat back and his mother laughed, touching his cheek but his face fell a moment later and he quietly asked; “I have to go again tomorrow though, right?”

Frigga paused, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip as she regarded the little boy and his resigned expression. Then she made her decision.

“No, Loki, you don’t have to go again”, she said softly, “if you want to, I’ll teach you how to fight”

“I don’t know”, Loki pursed his lips, “they’ll only make fun of me more for training with you”

“They won’t once we have gotten your basics down. The way your brother and his friends are trained does not work for you because your smaller and lither than they are. What I’m going to show you is less training for brute strength and hitting but more”, she flicked her wrist towards the window, spearing a fly that had just ambled in from outside against the wall behind it with a slim golden dagger, “subtle”, she showed him a smile when he looked from her to the wall and back again with big eyes, “And I think it’s time I start properly teaching you in doing magic, what do you think, sweetheart?”

“Yes”, Loki’s whole face lit up and his mother laughed softly and kissed the top of his head.

“We will have you up and fighting in no time”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> I always thought, Frigga's relationship to her youngest son gets slept on in the MCU so here you go - and yes, we're just going to forget about Odin in this, I'm sure you don't mind.
> 
> (I might tie this in with some of my frost-iron-works and expand on Loki's and Frigga's relationship)


End file.
